Or How And Why To Do Things The Hard Way

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Monthly Archives: April 2012

Can you see the crack running down vertically from the junction of the two main limbs stretching up? This is the same old huge maple tree that my son and artist Matt Bua secured the base of their “tree house bridge” to.

My husband noticed the crack a while back. This tree is behind our house, very close to our house. I have since noticed a similar old maple tree at our soccer field with a similar crack. I wonder if this is a common old age affliction of maple trees. The huge limbs press upward full of strength for years, and then the weight of all that vigor and strength begins to succumb to gravity…and slowly, the huge vertical limbs start to pull away from their core….they come “unglued” so to speak.

We need a “tree guy” now to come tell us what to do. Can we wrap the tree with a huge steel belt, to prevent it from splitting apart? Would that work? OR would he suggest lopping off one of the huge limbs, maybe the one looming over the roof of the house?

Meanwhile, and not so differently, I must seek the attention of the dentist to ascertain exactly what is going on deep inside my tooth. Does it have a similar crack that is slowly widening and allowing great gusts of cold air to hit an exposed nerve? Ot is it simply decaying gums exposing the root of the tooth? Which would be bettter? Which costs more to fix? or shore up? Can something be loped off to make it stop hurting?

See “Crisis Farm” post about 2 posts back. It was unseasonably warm and beautiful…no one moved all the collected detritus, so I could work several hours a day on these drawings. There is nothing so rejuvenating as slow rumination on the concept of crisis…I find myself pondering the big questions, like, Will any of this stuff get moved once my drawing is done and there is no reason for it to remain? and Where can all this stuff go? To what category of storage does a large plumbing apparatus belong? Will we be able to eradicate the collapsing barn? What would it feel like to look out my bedroom window and not see the old ramshackle monstrosity?

One of the many benefits of a less orderly life is that in the Spring, when I crave the bitter strong taste of dandelion after a long winter of store-bought greens, we have plenty of huge beautiful specimens to dig up. I bring them inside, wash them, cut the leaves at the base so they are all free of the stem, and toss them into a frying pan in which olive, garlic, and salt are already sizzling….Soooo delicious. And as organic as the $5.99 bunches in the “Health Food Store”.

See other posts for some of the drawbacks of a less orderly life. My 16 year old son just asked me the other day while making a cup of tea, wether I thought it was possible for a “Crisis Farm” to be neat and tidy. In other words, is it perhaps the nature of the beast to constantly be in flux with unfinished projects, collections of potentially useful materials, gardens in which weeds are OK (cause many are after all edible!) and so on. I told him about an old, but working, farm I had just driven by yesterday where the verdant pastures were littered with rusting machinery and bits of ancient vehicles, but where also perfectly operational tractors and trucks were parked in front of the big barn…..Perhaps each vehicle as it died functioned for awhile as a parts supplier….And it almost looked to me yesterday like a natural sculpture park…but I know I have a special vision when it comes to junk.

My younger two kids prevailed upon me once again and we went to the local swimming pool on Tuesday evening. I talked myself into joining them in the water; afterall, swimming is supposed to be good exercise, and I used to like spending time in “the pool” when I was a kid. As a matter of fact, I used to be able to do a front flip off of the diving board. So, of course I thought nothing of doing a straightforward dive off of the board. I followed Marsden into the water, ignoring a searing pain eminating from my left big toe as I left the board. It wasn’t until I was trying to help Ida get warm by the side of the pool a few minutes later, that I noticed the trail of blood I was leaving at the pool’s edge. I looked at the bottom of my toe. It seemed to now have a hole in it. What happened? Is it the forty extra pounds of weight since I was 14 and used to do this with ease? Was there a nail on the end of the diving board? Is it the ancient quality of the dried and calloused skin on my feet that can’t sustain the pressure of jumping from a diving board?

A second family arrived at the pool. I sat with Ida, my foot elevated as I tried to stop the bleeding, and watched a teenage girl do the most beautiful swimming I have ever seen. As she propelled effortlessly through the water, seeming to move at great speed, she caressed the water with a reaching action that involved rythmically turning her wrists at each stroke. I liked thinking how, once she was dressed and out of the water, one would never know about her sensuous strength as a swimmer…she would appear to be just another normal teenager.